Archive for December 17th, 2007

The Packers played fine yesterday in their 33-14 stomping of the St. Louis Rams. Fine, but not excellent.

The Rams are a better team than their record indicates and they came in 3-2 over their last five games. Their running game was strong — at one point Steven Jackson had 12 carries for something like 108 yards — and their run defense was surprisingly stout.The Packers’ offensive line seemed to regress a bit, especially in the running game. There were very few big holes for Ryan Grant to run through, especially early in the game. Pass protection was okay, however.

All in all (and I’m not looking to restart an old argument) the win yesterday reminded me of the win against Carolina: Decent, not great. They could have looked past this one and they didn’t, which tells us good things about Mike McCarthy and his staff, especially given the other top NFC teams that lost yesterday (Dallas, Seattle, NY Giants).

UPDATE: McCarthy was asked how the offensive line performed: Just OK. I thought the protection part of it, they did a great job of the pressure recognition, declarations. I don’t think we were fooled one time. I thought the communication was outstanding on the boundary as far as what they were trying to do, who’s bluffing and picking up the disguise and so forth. I thought they did a very good job of that. The run-blocking unit as a whole, it wasn’t our best day. We weren’t as productive as we would have liked to have been in the run game. But I thought their performance was OK.

“He’s a once-in-a-lifetime player. He’ll go down as one of the greatest or the greatest player in the history of the National Football League. But just the way he goes about his business I think speaks volumes about him as a person. He’s a joy to coach, he’s a big part of our success this year as he’s been throughout his whole career, and you love to see him just keep breaking these records.”